Earnings Reports for July 27

Celera Genomics, which
last month made history by announcing it had finished a rough
draft of the human genome, said fiscal
fourth-quarter loss widened 25 percent despite a near tripling
of sales for its genetic subscription business.

The company, which sells genetic data and related services
to large drug makers, said its net loss in the three months
ended June 30 rose to $24.9 million, or 43 cents a share, from
$19.9 million, or 39 cents a share, a year earlier.

Analysts, on average, were forecasting a loss of 35 cents a
share, according to First Call/Thomson Financial.

Revenues, meanwhile, rose to $15 million from $5.1 million,
a year ago.

The quarterly figures beat Wall Street’s average estimate of
74 cents a share, according to a survey of analysts by First
Call/Thomson Financial.

Sales rose 22 percent to $5.63 billion from $4.62 billion,
helped by a 13 percent jump in prices and a 9 percent increase
in volume.

Dow, which is acquiring rival Union Carbide Corp. in a deal
that will make it second only to DuPont Co. in worldwide sales,
said it was helped in the quarter by its a diverse business mix,
both in terms of products and geography.
Dow’s takeover of Union Carbide is expected to be completed
in the third quarter, later than originally thought.

In its so-called performance chemical and performance
plastics businesses, the company saw sharply higher volumes
during the quarter.

Crude oil, one of the main raw materials in the industry,
averaged about $28 in the quarter, about $10 a barrel higher
than the same period last year, but have recently showed signs
of slipping because of additional production.

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Earthlink Losses Less Than Expected

EarthLink Inc. said it lost less money
than expected in the second quarter, thanks to a 47 percent jump in
the number of customers for its Internet service.

Atlanta-based EarthLink, the country’s second-largest Internet
service provider after America Online, reported a $35.2 million
loss in the April-June period, or 29 cents per share not counting
one-time items.
That was better than the 36 cent-per-share loss
anticipated by analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial.

Including the one-time items, EarthLink lost $63.7 million, or
52 cents a share, compared with a loss of $39.7 million, or 35
cents a share, in the same quarter last year.

The quarter’s primary expense was EarthLink’s $300 million
purchase last month of OneMain.com, a Virginia ISP with 762,000
subscribers. EarthLink estimates it will have 5 million subscribers
by the end of the year.

“Frankly, the investment community would like to see more
growth,” said Fred Moran, head of Internet research at Jefferies
and Co. “The 5 million subscribers is what we would consider a
conservative number, very achievable.

“We still like EarthLink long term, but we’re cautious short
term given the volatility of Internet stocks,” he said.

EarthLink said it had 3.69 million subscribers at the end of the
quarter, a 47 percent increase in its membership from a year ago.
Of those, about 80,000 were customers of its high-speed Internet
services, a 78 percent jump from the first three months of 2000.

Atlanta-based MindSpring Enterprises bought Earthlink, formerly
based in Pasadena, Calif., last year. The company still has some
operations in Southern California.

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Ralston Purina Posts Modest Gain

Pet food maker Ralston Purina
Co. said profitability improved and international sales grew in its fiscal third quarter. The company’s earnings fell shy of Wall Street estimates.
The St. Louis-based maker of Puppy Chow and Cat Chow reported earnings of
$64.3 million, or 22 cents per diluted share. Analysts on
average had expected earnings of 23 cents a share, according to
First Call/Thomson Financial.

In the 1999 third quarter Ralston Purina had pro forma
earnings from continuing operations, before unusual items, of
$63.2 million, or 20 cents a share. The company said pro forma
comparisons were necessary because Ralston Purina spun off its
battery products business in April.

Ralston Purina shares were near their 52-week low on Wall Street.

Sales in the quarter rose 28 percent to $668.3 million from
$650.1 million a year ago.

The company said sales in the North American pet foods
division were flat in the third quarter, while profitability
rose 7 percent on lower ingredient costs.

The company said higher profitability in the quarter was
largely offset by lower equity earnings from its investment in Interstate Bakeries Corp.

One Wall Street analyst cited by Reuters characterized the results as solid and said it appeared as if Ralston-Purina fared well despite
the introduction into supermarkets of Procter & Gamble Co.’s premium pet food
brand, Iams.

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Sales, Profits Up at Starbucks

Starbucks Corp. reported a 31 percent gain in sales
and a 42 percent increase in profits in the third quarter.
Starbucks’ net profits in the quarter increased
to $34.9 million, or 18 cents per share, compared with $24.6
million, or 13 cents per share, in 1999. The results matched
estimates of analysts surveyed by First Call/Thomson Financial.

Revenues jumped to $556 million, up from $424 million in the
same period a year ago.

Starbucks also announced that it has raised the number of new
stores it plans to open this year from 750 to 900 worldwide. The
chain now has 3,100 stores.

For the nine months ended July 2, the company earned $93
million, or 48 cents per share, on sales of $1.6 billion. That
compares with profits of $69 million, or 37 cents per share, on
sales of $1.2 billion for the first nine months of 1999.
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Texaco Profits Double

Texaco Inc. said second-quarter income more than
doubled thanks to sharply higher crude oil and natural gas
prices.
The White Plains, N.Y-based oil company said income before
special items rose to $641 million, or $1.17 a share, from $286
million, or 52 cents, in the same period a year a year ago.
Revenues rose to $12 billion from $8.3 billion.

Analysts on average were forecasting $1.18 a share.
Texaco earned $614 million in its exploration and
production business, which is closely tied to commodity prices. That was up from $226 million posted in the same period last year.

Rivals Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. posted similarly
rosy profits in their exploration and production business thanks to high energy prices. Crude oil prices averaged about $28.75 a barrel in
the quarter, up more than $10 from a year
ago, as members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cartel largely honored an agreement to restrict supplies.

Natural gas prices were also red-hot during the quarter,
averaging about $3.65 compared to $2.25 per million British
thermal units in the same period a year ago.

But Texaco was largely unable to pass along the soaring costs of
crude oil in its sales of gasoline and other fuels,
which cut into profits in the company’s refining, marketing
and transportation business.

While Exxon Mobil said earlier this week that its capital
spending would continue to rise over the remainder of the year,
taking advantage of the higher cash flow which has accompanied
strong crude prices, Texaco gave little indication of future
spending plans.

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Unocal Beats Street Estimates

Independent oil and
natural gas company Unocal Corp. said sharply higher
oil and gas prices lifted its second-quarter profits more than
10 times, easily beating Wall Street estimates.
Unocal, based in El Segundo, Calif., said operating earnings
rose to $170 million, or 69 cents per diluted share, from $16
million, or 6 cents, in last year’s second quarter.

The earnings topped Wall Street analysts’ expectations of 63
cents per share, as reported by First Call/Thomson Financial.

The company said total revenues hit $2.248 billion for the
quarter compared with last year’s $1.441 billion, thanks in part
to soaring oil and natural gas prices, which have helped
companies perform better industrywide.

Roger C. Beach, Unocal’s chairman and chief executive officer, said he expects strong oil and natural gas prices
will mean continued profit growth in the remainder of the year.
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WorldCom Earns $1.33 Billion

WorldCom said second-quarter earnings
rose 47 percent to 1.33 billion, from $865 million in the same period a year ago.
The nation’s No. 2 provider of long-distance telephone service also said it may may create separate companies or tracking
stocks for its voice telephone operations.
Separating parts of the voice telephone business would allow
WorldCom to focus on providing more lucrative data, Internet and
international services to corporate customers.

On a per-share basis, WorldCom’s profits, excluding one-time items, came in at 46 cents, up from 31 cents a year ago.

The results matched Wall Street expectations of 46 cents a
share, according to analysts surveyed by research firm First
Call/Thomson Financial.

Clinton, Miss.-based WorldCom said net income, including
one-time items, rose to $1.28 billion, or 44 cents share in the
second quarter, ended June 30, 2000.

The company said revenues
rose to $10.19 billion, from $9.07 billion a year ago. Data,
Internet and international revenues grew 30 percent to $4.9
billion and now account for 48 percent of WorldCom’s total
revenues.

International revenues increased 31 percent to $1.4 billion,
driven by strong sales in Europe, as well as
increasing
revenues in the Asia-Pacific and Latin America regions. Voice
revenues grew 4 percent to $2.75 billion.

WorldCom president and CEO Bernie Ebbers said he was disappointed that a proposed $129 billion merger with Sprint was blocked by federal and European regulators, but
said the company is looking to the future.
He said WorldCom would continue to expand its global network by
sharpening its focus on “higher-margin, value-added services in
the commercial data, Internet and international markets.”
The collapse of the Sprint deal left WorldCom without a wireless
segment of its own. That segment of telecommunications is the fastest
growing in the United States, said David Burks, an analyst with J.J.B. Hilliard W.L. Lyons in
Louisville, Ky.

Burks said the spin-off possibility raised by Ebbers wasn’t surprising
given the company’s interest in the Internet.

The company has been shifting away from slower-growing
businesses such as the consumer long-distance and wholesale
markets due to increased competition and pricing pressure.